For the first Special Class of 2019 we are so excited to welcome the amazing flautist Jessie Gu! The flute is the most recognised member of the woodwind section of the orchestra, and Jessie will be showing us some of the wonderful music written for it.

Jessie will be joined by Laurence Matheson on piano as well as Rie-sensei and Patrick-sensei for two classes at 10:00am and 11:15am on Monday 11th March (Labour Day Public Holiday). Please note both classes will be run in Japanese.

We are so excited to have Melbourne Symphony Orchestra cellist Rohan de Korte as our guest artist for the first Special Class of 2018! Please join us as we explore this beautiful instrument and the extraordinary range of sounds it can make.

Rohan will be joined by the exciting young Melbourne pianist Laurence Matheson. Read more about Rohan and Laurence here.

Date

Monday March 12th 2018 (Labour Day Public Holiday)

Class 1: 10:00am to 10:45am

Class 2: 11:15am to 12:00pm

Both classes run in Japanese

Price

$17 per child

Parents free

Location

This week was Halloween, and many of the children dressed up for class! We pretended to be witches and zoomed around the room on our brooms, but when we played Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” some of the children got scared and started to cry! I was glad to see that the reactions they have to the music are so honest. We changed to a happy song and their tears dried up in an instant.

Next we used Halloween balloons which were a bit scary as well! Despite the scary class everyone was smiling at the end, especially after the special “trick or treat”!

This week I brought a metronome to class, and all of the children were transfixed! They did not move at all while they watched the slow swinging of the pendulum, and I was surprised by their amazing concentration.

At Rie’s Music World we try to encourage the children to get up in front of the class for small presentations. There are always some children who are a bit more shy and my daughter was one of those who used to avoid those situations. However when they see others getting up they want to encourage them, and at the same time they want to emulate them. Then when they finally push themselves to do it they feel a sense of pride, and each time after that their confidence improves.

In future classes I would like to include activities that the children will want to dive into before they even feel the embarrassment of standing in front of the class!

The heat has suddenly arrived in Melbourne, the capital of unpredictable weather! From down jackets one week to shorts the next, I still have not gotten used to it after 7 years.

Each term we have a different instrument theme – in Term 1 it was string instruments, Term 2 was percussion, Term 3 was voice and now in Term 4 it is time for my favourite, wind instruments! Just as with the voice, breathing is very important when playing instruments. In Term 4 we are starting the class with breathing, in and out, feeling and understanding the movements of the body.

This week we explored what sound is, something that moves through the air yet we cannot see it. We made handmade party poppers so that we could “see” the sound, and we were all surprised at how loud they were! Soon we got used to it and using the poppers we played along with Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony.